2013-04-15: Fox Business: Bitcon Crash Coming? Jeff Berwick Interview

[Zomdifros]

The question who runs Bitcoin is legitimate and somewhat difficult to answer. You could argue that the miners are in control of Bitcoin, or even the mining pool operators. But what if somewhere in the future there is a conflict between the miners and the users? Who will win this? And how much influence does the core dev team or the foundation have over changes made to the protocol?
 
I think the correct answer would be that the Bitcoin protocol is designed in such a way that it is very difficult to make controversial changes to it and that there exists a fair balance of power between the developers, miners and users.

[grondilu]

The question who runs Bitcoin is legitimate and somewhat difficult to answer. You could argue that the miners are in control of Bitcoin, or even the mining pool operators. But what if somewhere in the future there is a conflict between the miners and the users? Who will win this? And how much influence does the core dev team or the foundation have over changes made to the protocol?

Those are basically the same issues there are with any free and open-source software.

[Zomdifros]

The question who runs Bitcoin is legitimate and somewhat difficult to answer. You could argue that the miners are in control of Bitcoin, or even the mining pool operators. But what if somewhere in the future there is a conflict between the miners and the users? Who will win this? And how much influence does the core dev team or the foundation have over changes made to the protocol?

Those are basically the same issues there are with any free and open-source software.

Yes, but that is a different message than saying that nobody is in control of Bitcoin, because that implies that it can't be defended in case of an attack. There is control, but it is highly distributed.

[cypherdoc]

When asked "who runs bitcoin?", I wish Berwick had thought of answering "who runs the Internet?" instead of mentioning the Federal Reserve.

Though I guess the journalist thinks internet is run by Google or Facebook...  

the best answer to this question is simple:  "The People run it".

Sounds too rhetorical, imho.

PS.  Actually I'd be embarrassed if I had to answer the question "who runs internet?".  If we set aside DNS, internet is basically an implementation of TCP/IP, which is a network protocol.  So basically internet is run by anyone who is capable of administrating a TCP/IP network.   So I guess internet is run by network administrators all around the world.

i actually think the answer " "who runs internet?" is rhetorical.

i like "The People" b/c it answers the question directly, makes the interrogator pause and think, and it necessarily puts them on the defensive, as in "who would argue with such a principle?".